Oscars 2017

Film Academy Rescinds Oscar Nomination Just One Day Before the Ceremony

On the eve of the Oscars, the Academy has announced that it is retracting Greg P. Russell’s sound mixing nomination for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi due to “violation of Academy campaign regulations.”

At the eleventh hour—technically, about 26 hours before this year’s ceremony is slated to begin—the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that one of this year’s Oscar nominees will no longer be permitted to compete in his category.

“Upon recommendation by the Sound Branch Executive Committee, the Academy’s Board of Governors voted Thursday (2/23) to rescind the Sound Mixing nomination for Greg P. Russell from 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi for violation of Academy campaign regulations,” the Academy wrote in a release issued Saturday evening. “The decision was prompted by the discovery that Russell had called his fellow members of the Sound Branch during the nominations phase to make them aware of his work on the film, in direct violation of a campaign regulation that prohibits telephone lobbying.”

Though Russell’s nomination has been rescinded, his fellow 13 Hours sound engineers Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Mac Ruth will still compete for an Oscar on Sunday. No other crew member from the film will be named in Russell’s place.

“The Board of Governors’ decision to rescind Mr. Russell’s nomination was made after careful consideration,” Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs said in a statement. “The Academy takes very seriously the Oscars voting process and anything—no matter how well-intentioned – that may undermine the integrity of that process.”

The decision to revoke Russell’s nomination due to improper campaigning comes three years after the Academy last rescinded an Oscar nod for a similar reason—in 2014, the organization retracted a nomination for the little-seen film Alone Yet Not Alone in the best original song category after learning that the song’s composer, nominee Bruce Broughton, had used his position as a former Academy governor (and head of the music branch) to personally promote his own work.

The Academy Awards—where the remaining 13 Hours sound engineers will compete against crews from Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, La La Land, and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in the best sound mixing category—will be held Sunday, February 26.